When Byrne and Susan Hollander are killed in a brutal home invasion, the whole city catches its collective breath. A few days later the killers turn up dead behind a locked door in Brooklyn. One has killed his partner, then himself. The city sighs with relief. The cops close the case.</p>Matt and Elaine Scudder were in the same room with the Hollanders hours before their deaths. In spite of himself, Scudder is drawn to the Hollander case. The closer he looks, the more he senses the presence of a third man, a puppet master who manipulated his two accomplices, then cut their strings when he was done with them.</p>The villain who looms in the shadows is one of Block's most inspired creations, cold and diabolical, murdering for pleasure and profit. Nobody but Scudder even suspects he exists -- and he's not done killing.</p>He's just getting started....</p>

勞倫斯·布洛剋生於1938年，在上世紀50年代開始寫小說。布洛剋最早齣版的小說《睡不著覺的密探》（1966年）主角是一位名叫伊凡·譚納的密探，因為在朝鮮戰爭中腦部受傷，再也無法睡眠，這個角色在之後的係列中不斷地齣現，最新的是1998年的《冰上的譚納》。布洛剋還有其他受歡迎的係列，比如“殺手凱勒”係列和以紐約二手書商兼盜賊羅登巴爾為主角的“雅賊”係列。主要著作有：《睡不著覺的密探》、《父之罪》、《在死亡之中》、《謀殺與創造之時》、《彆無選擇的賊》、《刀鋒之先》、《惡魔預知死亡》、《小城》、《死亡的渴望》等。